First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ           August 29, 2010

Sermon—“A Fish Story”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor

Note: The following story was offered, without notes, at the 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. worship services.  The story is fictitious, original, and can be read in its full form below.

You know, I have to say that I have really come to enjoy these Intergenerational Sundays!  They are a good chance for me to break out of the normal routine, come down in front of the church, and share the message with you in a different way.  And I have to say that I also have begun to love writing stories for these Sundays!  So this morning I want to share with you another story that I wrote this week.

Once upon a time, in the Gulf of Maine, just off the coast of Portland, there was a large community of cod.  In fact, this was a huge community of cod, named, you guessed it, Codville.  Nestled in between a number of rocks, in a nice deep, dark, and rocky hole, this was one area that the fishermen and women just couldn’t get access to.  So it meant that the fish were quite safe and could reproduce abundantly.  Not only that, but there were lots and lots of lobsters, mackerel, muscles, and haddock for the cod to eat.  It was a good place for the cod to live.

However, like any good place to live, this place also had some challenges—namely the teenage cod.  Now, teenage cod are actually quite a bit younger than human teenagers—roughly about age 3 or 4, when the cod are fully developed.  This is the time when the cod haven’t taken a leadership role in their community yet, but can still get themselves into a lot of trouble.

And that was certainly the case for four cod friends: Swimmy, Jimmy, Finny, and Vinny.  These four were very well known by everyone in their community, because they were always getting into trouble.  They would pick up rocks with their tails and carve their names in the boulders on the edge of their cod community; they would hide in the seaweed and jump out at the female cod that were swimming home late at night; they would pull pranks like pulling another cod’s tale when they weren’t looking.  All in all these cod just liked to cause trouble.

So this was a concern for the community, but also for the parents of Swimmy, Jimmy, Finny, and Vinny.  They were tired of being called by their cod neighbors to ask them to come get their children at night or to stop them from bothering other fish.  And so these parents tried everything.  They tried attaching their children to fishermen’s stringers that were found on nearby rocks, but that didn’t work.  They tried roping off their children in certain sections of the community with fishing line and seaweed, but that didn’t keep the fish at bay either.  Nothing they could do seemed to stop these teenage cod from getting into all kinds of mischief!

So this was bad, and the parents knew it needed to stop, and one day it did—but not the way anyone might have hoped it would.  You see, the fish were planning one of their biggest pranks ever.  Having swam outside of their little community—which was a definite no-no—Swimmy, Jimmy, Finny, and Vinny had found a fisherman’s hook.  Now, nothing scares fish more than a fisherman’s hook.  Yet these were rarely seen in Codville.  So the fish had a plan.

They decided that at that evening’s rush hour—when all the swimming lanes for fish were filled with cods racing home to see their families—they would drop the hook from above.  This was bound to scare the cod racing home like nothing had ever scared them before.

So they set out to work.  They attached the large hook to the end of some fishing line.  They then attached the line to the top of a rock which dangled over one of the busiest swimming lanes in Codville, and they waited.  Around the time when the swimming lanes were at their busiest—full of tail to mouth traffic—they dropped the hook into place.  This, as you might imagine, caused the cod below to panic.  Once they saw the hook they swerved and they darted and that maneuvered themselves as far away from that hook as they possibly can.

And while no one got hooked, it did so happed that two cod—each coming in the opposite direction—swerved around the hook towards the same side, and they crashed, headfirst, into each other.  When the two fish laid on the rocky ground below, dazed from what had happened, the four friends from above got scared.  They raced off, thinking that no one had seen them—but someone had.  No sooner had they gotten to their favorite hangout near their homes than did the Codville police come swimming to their door.

The police knew that these four cod were responsible for the accident that had happened.  And while no one was seriously hurt, the police decided that it was time to sentence the four teenagers to community service.

“That’s just great,” the cod thought to themselves, “are we going to be raking gravel on the ocean floor?  Are we going to be cleaning up the swimming lanes after rush hour traffic?  We could get stuck doing anything!”

But much to their surprise the police didn’t ask the cod to do any clean-up work.  No, instead the police asked the cod to go and visit Mr. Stripeside, the oldest cod in the community.  You see, Mr. Stripeside had been ill for a while.  He was unable to care for himself and needed a lot of help catching fish to eat, cleaning up around his home, and all that.  So the police thought that it might be good if these teenage, delinquent, cod spent some time caring for one of their elders.

“This is going to be awful,” Swimmy said to the others.  “We have to spend all this time with Mr. Stripeside, I can’t think of anything more boring!”  The other fish moved their mouths in agreement.  But just the same, the four friends showed up at Mr. Stripeside’s place as they were supposed to.  Figuring that it was going to be awful they prepared for the worst, but it actually wasn’t so bad.  While they were cleaning and caring for Mr. Stripeside, he told them stories of when he was young, all the trouble he had gotten into, and how he realized that he needed to change his ways.

And after a while Mr. Stripeside’s talks began to have an effect on the four teenagers.  They stopped getting in as much trouble, they played fewer jokes on others, and they were kind to people they knew.

Well, after three weeks the time came for their community service to end.  Although they enjoyed their time with Mr. Stripeside, the four friends were ready to be done.  However, on their last day they were met at the door by one of the cod police.  He told them that if they’d keep working with Mr. Stripeside for another couple of months, then they’d be honored at the community volunteer appreciation dinner that was coming up.

Now this sounded like a great deal to Swimmy, Jimmy, Vinny, and Finny.  Everyone knew that the volunteer dinner was well worth getting invited to.  The food was wonderful and the girl fish really seemed to like those who were being honored.  So they agreed, figuring that the pay off at the end was worth it.

Well the day for the banquet finally arrived.  And as the four friends were getting ready to leave to head to the reception, Finny got a call.  It seemed that Mr. Stripeside had gotten stuck beneath one of the rocks near his home.  Having a hard time getting out, a neighbor saw him, rescued him, and brought him to the hospital.

Now even though Finny wouldn’t admit it to his friends, he had really come to like spending time with Mr. Stripeside.  And so when the four friends met up to go to the reception he told them what had happened.  “Shouldn’t we go to the hospital and see Mr. Stripeside,” he asked his three friends.  “And miss the reception we’ve worked so hard for,” said Swimmy, “no way!  I’ve been waiting two months for that lobster.  And you know that Henrietta and Melanie—those two cods from school—are going to be there.  We can’t miss this!”

“Just the same,” Finny replied.  “I’m going to see Mr. Stripeside.  It just seems like the right thing to do, and he’s done so much for all of us.”  And with that they parted ways.  Swimmy, Jimmy, and Vinny headed to the reception.  When they arrived they saw a huge banquet table laid out with amazing food.  Immediately they grabbed their nametags, and seeing no cards for where they should be seated, they placed themselves at the head of the table.

A few minutes later, just before the ceremony was to begin, Jimmy felt a tap on his dorsal fin.  Not knowing who it might be, Jimmy was pleased to see the organizer of the event behind him.  However, the organizer was not so pleased to see Jimmy.  “Um, Jimmy, excuse me, but you need to move with your friends down to the other end of the table—this section is reserved for Codville’s greatest volunteers.  In fact, you’re in Mr. Murkyseas’ seat—he’s the one sitting at the other end of the table.  He was the one who rescued Mr. Stripeside from the rocks the other night.  He’s our guest of honor and this is his seat.”

Saddened, and a quite a bit embarrassed, Jimmy, Vinny, and Swimmy headed to the foot of the table.  And while Jimmy couldn’t be certain, he was pretty sure that he saw Henrietta and Melanie laughing as the three friends swam by.  Needless to say the reception was not what the three friends had expected it would be.

Meanwhile Finny had made his way to the hospital to see Mr. Stripeside.  When he saw him Finny was saddened that their friend didn’t look very well at all.  In fact, Mr. Stripeside was so weak that he could barely open his eyes to look at Finny.  But even so, without opening his eyes, Mr. Stripeside managed to say something to Finny: “Thank you,” he said, “I knew that you were the one who understood.”

And with that Mr. Stripeside closed his eyes.  Finny swam his way out.  By this time it was too late for Finny to head to the reception—he knew that dinner would be about over.  So he headed home.  His parents were waiting for him at the door.  “We went all the way to the reception to see you, and you didn’t even both to show up,” she said, “did this whole experience teach you nothing?”

“It did,” Finny replied, and went on to tell his parents where he had been.  When he got to the end of the story—and heard what happened with his three friends being asked to sit at the bottom of the table—Finny laughed to himself.  He had a feeling inside that he had done the right thing, and those words from Mr. Stripeside were going to stay with him for a while.  “Thank you.”  Finny didn’t know why, but he knew that they were more important to him than any award he might be given.

I wrote this story because, as I was reading the gospel lesson for today—and as we were talking about it in Bible study this week—I realized that I don’t agree with the lesson.  While I agree that God wants us to be humble, and that it’s better if we’re humble and then given a great reward vs. expecting a big reward and then being told we weren’t as good as we thought we were, for me that actually misses the point.

And that’s because this lesson suggests that we’re supposed to do things because there’s a reward attached to the end of them.  Be humble, the text says, so that you can get a better reward than those who are not humble.  Well I actually disagree.  I think that we’re supposed to be humble—and do the things that God asks us to do—not because there’s some reward at the end, but because it’s just the right thing to do. 

Because, for me, the feeling you get knowing you have done the right thing is more than enough reward.  And that’s because that warm, fuzzy feeling we get—you know the one, when you’ve done the right thing for the right reason—I believe that’s God inside of us, saying exactly what Mr. Stripeside said: “Thank you.  You’re the one who got it.”

And so, for me, I wish this Luke lesson said that.  I wish it said that we should do the right thing just because it’s the right thing to do—not because of some reward attached to it.  Because that feeling inside is worth it.  It’s a reminder that God is with us, that God loves us all the same, and God is pleased with us—in much the same way as baptism is a similar reminder.  It’s just another way for us to feel, tangibly, that God is with us and God is pleased with us—especially when we do the right thing for the right reason.

And so my challenge to you today, my friends, is to go beyond what this parable says.  Be humble—or you could say, do what God has called you to do—not because you’re waiting to be rewarded, but simply because it’s the right thing to do.  I can guarantee that the feeling you’ll get—the blessing you’ll receive from God—will far outweigh any reward you could possibly imagine.  Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

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